Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Small Success Thursday

I know. It's after ten and you'ld think with not blogging, I'd be more prompt.

Well, it's funny. Fasting makes you spend a lot of time thinking about the fact that you are NOT writing and my brain keeps teasing out ideas and thoughts from whatever wherever I am. But I have discovered those things that get sacrificed when you spend a lot of time writing, like going outside, playing baseball with your son until it gets dark and a bit after, reading to the youngest six, each of them their own story, and my house is cleaner.

But Sherry, aren't you just substituting one activity for another by filling up the time? Yes and no. It is a new process, a painful and clumsy and difficult one, to limit my desire to spill everything out onto every page every day. But Lent is about learning to be still. And stillness requires wilfulness. I am stubbornly active. Many years back, I played a game called the Cube. In it, you envision the following objects.

A dessert.
In the dessert is a cube. (Set in your mind the cube).
And a ladder.
And a horse.
And flowers.
And a storm.

Got it? A dessert. A Cube. A ladder. A horse. Flowers. And a storm.

The cube is you.

Mine was this spinning sparkling thing that could only be reached by a ladder (in my case a steel staircase ladder like you use to deplane), and the ladder stablized the cube and made it stop spinning.

The ladder are friends.
For the sake of those who might want to finish the image, the dessert is the landscape of your life, the storm is trouble, the flowers are your children and the horse is your beloved.

Going back to my own image, friends keep me from being dizzy, they focus me, they stablize me. I had allowed blogging to substitute for friends, allowing me to spin. So that's why I'm taking this hiatus. Nothing tragic. Nothing crazy. Nothing earth shattering. Just hoping to do some more internal spring cleaning, to get rid of the piles of clutter that have gathered since the last time I dusted in here.

Now, what did I do this week?

1) I cleaned out a bedroom...even under the beds.

2) stopped blogging temporarily.

3) was accepted to pitch Helen at a writer's conference at the end of the month! (Exciting).

4) returned to making a daily list of things to do...it just helps me every time I do it.

5) did my daughter's hair with the flat iron. My sister will be so proud. My idea of hair styling is a pony tail.

6) Thank you for the well wishes and prayers for my uncle. He is doing much better. Thank you!

7) Took the bikes to be repaired this weekend (six of them!) and they'll be back the 3rd of April.

My mother faithfully carries out number 4 every night, as well...she said it motivates her to get up and get going in the mornings! I read to my youngest 6 each night after supper...the only problem I have is that they ALL want to sit RIGHT next to me...so people end up on TOP of each other or up and behind me on the back of the sofa...like some sort of "living boa-wrap" or something! LOL

The Chocolate Brain behind the Blog

FAQ'S about this blog, a fabricated interview with footnotes.

Hi! Welcome to my blog. You can read my stuff here and at new.catholicmom.com. I publish there on Thursdays, with Small Successes!

FAQ's about this blog, a fabricated interview*

Q. Why CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN?

A. You've heard of Chicken Soup for your Soul...well this is a similar principle. Chocolate, like laughter, produces endorphins in the brain, pleasant feelings, and that's what this blog is supposed to do.

Also, I have a pet theory about Comedy, that Good Humor is like a Chocolate Bar. It contains bits of nuts and a nougat of truth. The chocolate coating makes it go down easier, because no one wants to eat a bar of pure nougat.

Q. Why didn't you name your blog Chocolate for Your Brain in the URL?

A. Because I was new to the blogiverse and did not comprehend at that point how to make a blog much less market it, and therefore, I've just stayed with that URL which promotes my name but unfortunately tells the reader nothing about my blog or its clever title.

Q. It's your blog, why not change?

A. I'm a conservative Catholic, according to the news media, I fear change.

Q. That was funny! How do I leave a comment?

A. Scroll down to the bottom of the posted blog piece. It should look like this:

Q. How can I know if there's new stuff other than when you say you'll post?

A. At the bottom of the page, you'll see Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Click on it and you can receive automatic email updates that the blog has been updated. I do promise to update it on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday otherwise, so you can just check those times if you'ld rather.

Q. Why do you write a blog, it's not like you don't have other things to tend to, other things to do?

A. I like writing. I like writing to make people laugh. It's good practice for my brain. Consider these stories mental gymnastics, less time consuming than soduku and more fun.

Q. Why aren't all of your articles from the Beaumont Enterprise or Catholic Standard linked?

A. What a thoughtful and observant question! Most of the pieces I've written for both of these publications were not posted on their websites, so I have no links to post. But I've also been at this for now 7 years, so if I linked everything, there would be nothing but links and that gets tedious.Thanks for letting me clear that up.

Q. Aren't I you?

A. Well, yes. But this format made it so much easier to explain everything. Thank you for your time, that's all the questions for today folks.

Sherry, you're doing a heck of a job!

Editor's note from the *. Despite similarities --monitoring communications and fabricating interviews, this blog is NOT affiliated with FEMA in any way.

Despite being satirical on occasion against the current congress and administraiton, this site HAS not been fact checked by CNN.

This blog is not a construct of FOX news, talk radio or a limb of the Republican party or any vast right wing conspiracy.

Thoughts expressed here are my own and not underwritten by the insurance agencies or any other soul free corporations. (Believe me, I'd know if I was being paid).

WAXY CHEAP CHOCOLATE SOLD AT HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE PHARMACY

I work and I write and I suffer but don't feel any guilt about it because You are worth it.

No.No. You don't have to get me anything for Christmas either.

Why?

Because I love you. Not just you but the whole Blogosphere and the whole Blogging world. That's right, I'm just a sentimental ball of mush, sort of like a melted whopper you find underneath the car seat because some kid in the Halloween Candy screening process found and rejected a piece without first offering the offending Chocolate to his mother.

I feel so used.

NOTE: CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN UPDATES on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday! Updates are guaranteed by 5:00 pm that day or your money back. What's that? You didn't pay? Wait.... How does this thing work?

Let me know how I'm doing folks! You can email me at sherryantonettiwrites@yahoo.com

Quotables from Sherry's Brain

On pain...

"I don't need anesthesia if I can still crack a joke."

On the absurdity of everyday minutia...

"What Would Flannery O'Connor do?"

On Excellence where ever it is pronounced by an official, movies, politics, books, policies, people...

"If this is the best there is, then man are we in trouble."

On viewing my own karotype after a DNA screening test...

"My geneotype came back normal so all my faults are of my own doing."

On humor:

"Laughter is priceless but don't worry, all of this blog is free."

On what God will say to me one day...

"I gave you all these people, all these gifts. What were you doing blogging away time on the internet?"

The Book of Helen on Sale Now!

Click on this to get your copy of The Book of Helen autographed!

WRITING MY NEXT BOOK

The working title is The Book of Penelope.
Continuing the story, we will discover the internal odyssey the wife of Odysseus took from the day he left her side until she finally reinvited him into her heart.
Currently at 75K...and counting. Goal 500 words a day. Stay tuned...

Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Mercier

O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You.
Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.
Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders.
I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your Will.